Kate Llewellyn
by George J. Dance Kate Llewellyn (born 1936) is an Australian poet. Life Llewellyn was born Katherine Jill Sky Brinkworth at Tumbly Bay, South Australia, the oldest of four children of Ivy and Ron Brinkworth. She trained as a nurse, moving to Royal Adelaide Hospital in 1958. In 1960 she married Richard Llewellyn; the couple had two children, Hugh (born in 1962) and Caroline (born in 1965). In the 1960s the Llewellyns opened an art gallery in Adelaide, and became involved in the local anti-Vietnam War protest movement. In 1972 they divorced, and Kate Llewellyn returned to school, earning a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Adelaide in 1978. While at university Llewellyn began writing poetry, helping to found the Friendly Street poetry society, and writing her first collection, Teeth, and other verses, which won the University's Budney Prize in 1975. A selection of her work was included in the anthology Sisters 1 in 1979. IShe became secretary of the Poets' Union in 1981, and published her first commercial poetry collection in 1982. She has published six collections since. In the late 1980s she moved to the Blue Muntains, where she wrote a trio of novels often called the "Blue Mountains Trilogy." Writing "Unafraid of the physical aspects of life and often frankly earthy about female sexuality, her verse celebrates the arrival and departure of love, childbirth and childhood, the familiarity become strangeness of parent-child relationships, foreign cities, gardening and simple natural phenonema which suggest the complexities of human experience.... Llewellyn has remarked that her life 'is simply the paddock I plough when I write. I do it, not because it is unique or from a sense of my own importance, but rather because it is held in common with the lives of other women in this place and this time. It is its commonality that I value'."<Kate Llewellyn, Oxford Companion to Australian Literature. Answers.com, Web, Feb. 1, 2013. Publications Poetry * Teeth, and other verses. Adelaide: University of Adelaide, 1975. *''Just a Minute'', in Sisters Poets 1''. Carlton South, Vic: Sisters Publishing, 1979.Kate Llewellyn (1936– ), Australian Poetry Library, Web, Mar. 13, 2012. *''Trader Kate and the Elephants. Unley, SA: Friendly Street Poets, 1982. *''Luxury. Broadway, NSW: Redress Press, 1985. *Honey: Poems. Hawthorn, Vic: Hudson, 1988. *Figs: Poems. Hawthorn, Vic: Hudson, 1990. *Selected Poems. Hawthorn, Vic: Hudson, 1992. *Crosshatched. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1994. *Sofala, and other poems. Kew, Vic: Hudson, 1999. Novels * ''Dear You. Hawthorn, Vic: Hudson, 1988. * The Mountain. Hawthorn, Vic: Hudson, 1989. Non-fiction * Angels and Dark Madonnas. Hawthorn, Vic: Hudson, 1991, *''Lilies, Feathers, and Frangipani'' (travel). Pymble, NSW: Angus & Robertson, 1993. *''Gorillas, Tea, and Coffee: An African sketchbook''. Hawthorn, Vic: Hudson, 1996. *''Stardust''. Hawthorn, Vic: Hudson, 1997. *''Playing with Water: A story of a garden''. Pymble, NSW: HarperCollins, 2005. * The Dressmaker’s Daughter. Pymble, NSW: HarperCollins, 2008. *''A Fig at the Gate: The joys of friendship, gardening, and the gaining of wisdom''. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2014. Edited * Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets (edited with Susan Hampton). Ringwood, Vic, & New York: Penguin, 1986. ISBN 0-14-058575-3 Journals * The Waterlily: A Blue Mountains journal. Hawthorn, Vic: Hudson, 1987. *''Burning: A journal''. Hawthorn, Vic: Hudson, 1997. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Kate Llewellyn, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Nov. 15, 2015. See also * List of Australian poets References External links ;Poems * "Peacocks" * Friendly Street Poets: Kate Llewellyn. * Kate Llewellyn (1936– ) in the Australian Poetry Library (386 poems). ;Audio / video * Kate Llewellyn on Radio National. *Kate Llewellyn interview on Australian Broadcasting Corp., 2014. ;About * Kate Llewellyn in the Oxford Companion to Australian Literature. *Kate Llewellyn at AustLit Category:1936 births Category:20th-century poets Category:20th-century women writers Category:Australian poets Category:Australian women writers Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:Women poets